User Operation: How to use B-side operation thinking to increase user growth?

A few days ago, I was having a party with some friends and talking about my work in user operations . Their first reaction was to ask what user operations are about. If they asked me to describe user operations in one sentence, it would be "user-centric" to create an interactive connection between products and users.

Commonly used methods of user operation include user data analysis, building user models, user stratification, grading, points system, membership system, etc., so as to achieve operational goals such as user growth , retention, payment, and repeat purchase.

Taking this topic as an example, this article would like to talk about user operations and how to learn from the B-side operational thinking to awaken silent users and achieve the goal of growth.

Put aside operations and go deep into users

1. Think of yourself as a "mushroom"

As a user operator, understanding your own users is the most basic skill. Generally, we will first understand who the product users are through product data, user data, research reports, and data from industry competitors.

After forming a preliminary impression through preliminary data analysis, we need to delve deeper into the users. Here is a classic story. A doctor went to work in a mental hospital. He imitated the patients and squatted outside, not moving or talking. After a few days, one of the patients said to him, "Oh, so you are also a mushroom!"

This story tells us that one of the most direct ways to understand users is to go deep into their hearts and do the same things as them. Only then will they tell you their real needs and ideas.

2. From users, to users

"User-centric" is the original intention of user operation. Everything should be driven by user needs. Operation strategies should be formulated based on user needs, and then tested among users to see if the operation strategies are correct. Xiaomi's operational marketing strategy of giving users a sense of "participation" is a good example of this - "interact with users to make good products, and rely on word of mouth from users for communication and marketing. Today is not an era of simply selling products, but selling a sense of participation!"

C+B operational thinking

The core pain points of Internet operations are: converting potential users (attracting new users), converting existing users, converting valuable users (purchasing), and increasing user value (including repeat purchases, cross-selling, etc.).

The focus of user operation is to convert users and enhance user value. Nowadays, traffic is becoming more and more expensive. As a user operator, having the skills to increase the number of users will not be competitive in the future. Learning from the B-end thinking - serving old users well, tapping the value of old users, and bringing revenue growth to the company is a new breakthrough point for user "growth", which is what I mentioned at the beginning of the article, learning from the B-end operational thinking to achieve the goal of growth.

The value of awakening old B-side customers is to guide them to renew their contracts and repurchase existing services. If there are additional value-added services or expansion of business lines, new products and services can also be provided to customers. The value of awakening old C-end users is to encourage them to purchase the platform's products and services, but they are not limited to the products they purchased last time.

For example: Three months ago, I applied for a US visa on an OTA platform, but there was no subsequent consumption. The platform can push US-related air ticket trends, free travel, group tours, local entertainment and other products to me based on my profile and behavioral preferences, thereby guiding my consumption. In addition, you can also push products for overseas routes such as Europe, Australia, and Africa to me, but please do not push US visa products.

The old users mentioned in the previous paragraph introduce a concept - silent users. Different products have slightly different definitions of silent users. For example, for e-commerce products, silent users are users who have had consumption behavior in the past, but have not had any consumption behavior within a certain period (7 days, 15 days, 30 days, etc., the time period is defined based on the actual user consumption frequency data of the product). This type of user belongs to the fourth stage in the user life cycle - the decline or silent stage.

(If you are not clear about the commonly used user operation models, please read the article and refer to relevant materials to supplement your knowledge: user life cycle model, RFM model, funnel model, pyramid model, normal distribution)

Generally speaking, silent users are users who have contributed value to the product, have a certain level of knowledge about the product, and understand how to use and purchase the product, but no longer generate value within a cycle. At this time, we need to find ways to get them back to the platform to use the product and generate value. Because old users already have a certain understanding of the product, their conversion rate is higher than that of new users, and their willingness to pay is also higher than that of new users.

Targeting silent users to drive growth

The operational thinking throughout is to serve old users well and to drive revenue as the operational goal. The next step is how to find these users and reach them accurately to bring in additional revenue growth.

Imagine a product with over 100 million cumulative users. If you simply and roughly apply the above definition to awaken it, you will find that there are tens of millions of users waiting for your call. Can these users generate revenue?

The answer is of course no. So how can we consider it from the perspective of conversion and conduct refined user operations to find silent users? Generally, we can screen them through the following dimensions:

1. Basic attributes: gender, age, zodiac sign, age, region, etc.;
2. Social attributes: occupation, income, education level, etc.;
3. Consumption behavior: consumption amount, consumption time, consumption frequency, etc.;
4. Interests and preferences: photography, self-driving, hiking, hotel control, etc.;
5. Behavioral preferences: purchase, collection, comment, etc.

Through the above labeled data analysis, we can find the target user portrait and do AB testing through user data analysis. For example: users who are from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, aged between 25 and 35, with an average historical order consumption of 1,000 yuan, have collected/purchased products for Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and have not made any purchases in half a year.

Another set of data can be used as a comparison group based on order amount, travel route, region, and silent time period, and then another set of data is prepared without awakening. After eliminating the factor of natural return of users, the actual revenue growth brought by awakening is calculated. The next step is to reach out to the screened users and promote their secondary order conversion.

Screening silent users is to maximize the promotion of user consumption. In addition, it can improve operational efficiency, reduce operating costs, and calculate the revenue growth brought about by using this operating strategy.

Select the method to reach accurately

After selecting the target users, operations should think about how to make users interact with the product. As mentioned earlier, the commonly used ways to awaken silent users are:

(1) Push/on-site messages

Push/in-site messages are the most common way to wake up users. When I first started mobile operations, it was a very effective way. At that time, the number of APP products was not as many as it is now, and marketing push was not used so frequently. The user opening rate of Push is relatively high, but now a push (marketing) product with an opening rate of 2% is already a good product.

(2) SMS

Among the three operational tools (push + SMS + red envelopes), SMS is a very commonly used method. Compared with push and in-site messages, SMS has higher reach rate, open rate and conversion rate. But there is a certain cost (about 3 cents per message), so most products now use SMS to wake up or notify users.

(3) EDM

Overseas products can use email. Due to domestic user habits, the EDM opening rate and conversion rate are very low. It is not recommended to use it alone. It can be used in combination with SMS and push.

(4) Telephone follow-up (use with caution)

Telephone follow-up is generally used to recall important customers of B-end products. The labor cost is high, and improper customer service communication skills will cause user disgust and complaints. Therefore, it should be used with caution when awakening silent users of C-end products.

(5) Benefits (red envelopes/coupons/gifts)

Interest points are the simplest and most brutal way to stimulate user consumption, with high conversion rates, and are mostly combined with activities. In the early stages of new product promotion, this method will be used to attract new customers and retain old ones, such as sending red envelopes, coupon subsidies, etc. Didi, Ele.me, and O2O products all used interest point stimulation methods.

However, in the current Internet environment, it is best not to offer discounts that do not increase revenue. Therefore, when awakening the interest points, it is important to pay attention to calculating the balance between the lost gross profit and the revenue growth to avoid negative gross profit, which would be counterproductive.

Summarize

In recent years, companies have paid more and more attention to user growth. Almost everyone is talking about growth. If you have not achieved user growth from 0 to 10 million, you dare not say that you are engaged in user operations. However, in my opinion, the core value of user operation in the future is not how much growth in the number of users it can bring, but how to bring revenue growth to the company.

In addition, the combination of B-end and C-end operational thinking is also a future trend. The two can learn from each other, improve the operational thinking according to the characteristics of the product, and make some micro-innovations to better meet the changes of the times.

• When choosing a user operator, enterprises should first consider whether he has a global perspective, can draw inferences from one instance to another, and can quickly switch his thinking.
• Secondly, we need to see whether the company has its own operational methodology and can combine existing models for micro-innovation, ultimately forming a monetizable operational strategy for implementation;
• Finally, it depends on whether the candidate has experience in building a product from 0 to 1, and whether the candidate has managed products with high daily/monthly active users.

Of course, the above selection criteria are based on the candidate's character, attitude, and the company's hard indicators. It is recommended that companies focus on these considerations when selecting candidates.

This article mainly talks about how to awaken silent users by using C+B operational thinking, and draw on B-side thinking to serve old users well. If you use the right "enticement" method, these users will follow you just by beckoning them. In addition, the points system and membership system are also common operational methods to activate old users and enable them to produce value.

The core of the membership system is membership rights. Whether it is free or paid membership, it is equivalent to the bait on the fish hook. Whether the bait suits the fish's appetite determines whether the fish will take the bait. The core of the points system is points consumption, and the high-level term is called "points in the pocket". By building a good points system and membership benefits, you can grab a place in the minds of old users, making them think of your products when they want to consume.

In the next article, I would like to talk about combining the operational thinking of the C-end and B-end to build a points system/membership system.

Related reading:

1. User operation: How to build a system to recall lost users?

2.5 steps to build a complete user recall system!

3. How to build a user recall system from 0 to 1?

4. User operation examples to create a lost user recall system

5. How to recall lost users at low cost?

6. User operation: Detailed explanation of AARRR user model and traffic pool model!

Author: Wang Yanfei

Source: Jianfa Operation